This week Europe’s politicians have had the chance to put aside, if only briefly, their economic fears and join in a chorus of condemnation of Ukraine, where former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced on Tuesday to seven years’ jail for her approval of a controversial gas deal with Russia in 2009.
Consensus is that this was a blatantly political verdict, and that while Tymoshenko may have been guilty of poor judgment, there was nothing that in ordinary circumstances would be considered criminal. If her sentence is allowed to stand, there is no doubt that relations between Ukraine and the West will be significantly harmed, setting back Ukraine’s ambitions for deeper integration with (and ultimately membership of) the EU.
Background first: Tymoshenko came to prominence as a leader of the “Orange revolution” of 2004, which resulted in the annulling of disputed presidential elections and the subsequent victory of pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko appointed Tymoshenko as prime minister, but their relationship soon fell apart and the pro-Russian forces of Viktor Yanukovych were able to make a comeback.
Early last year Yushchenko, running for re-election, could only manage fifth place, and narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in the runoff, 51.8% to 48.2%.
But efforts to read this as a simple morality play quickly break down.
Despite his support in the Russified east and south of the country, Yanukovych has pursued closer ties with the West since his election, while Tymoshenko, supposedly the pro-Western candidate, had run on a platform of improved relations with Russia and has now been convicted of unduly favouring Russian interests.
Not surprisingly, Russia has also condemned the verdict against her, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin describing it as “dangerous and counterproductive”. In a country deeply divided between Russia and the west, Yanukovych seems to have hit on a way of simultaneously outraging both.
It looks to me as if Yanukovych was simultaneously trying to do two things: first, to destroy his main political rival, and secondly, to send an unmistakable signal that he was not a Russian puppet. From the West’s point of view, the second is laudable but the first is an unacceptable use of the judicial process. (From Russia’s point of view it’s the other way around.)
What he now needs to do is find a way of undoing the damage that has been done without actually giving up on those two objectives. From his statements since the verdict, it would appear that Yanukovych is trying to do just that. Referring to further legal proceedings, he said that “Ahead lies the appeals court, and it will without a doubt make a decision within the bounds of the law, but the decision will have great significance”.
It has been suggested that the charges against Tymoshenko could be downgraded from criminal to administrative, freeing her from jail and allowing her to run in parliamentary elections scheduled for October next year. Her credibility would still have been undermined, but Yanukovych could hope to at least soften western reproaches about political persecution.
The task for any Ukrainian politician is to try to overcome the country’s deep geographical division and reach out to voters beyond their own power base. Yanukovych’s calculation seems to be that he is safe enough in the Russian-speaking regions to be able to afford causing some angst in Moscow; what he really needs is better relations with the West, in the hope that will allay the suspicions of western Ukraine.
But putting a losing presidential candidate in jail is clearly not the way to win friends in the EU.
From what I remember of Tymoshenko, she is a real piece of work, and a Janus-faced democrat. Her political career is one of double- and triple-dealing; for example she has been endorsed by Putin (whose attempts to directly control political outcomes in Ukraine are well known). I am not sure the country would not be better off without her. But of course this is not the way to do it. This is a democracy with training wheels, and actually it looks like for both Yushchenko and the country this may have been a useful learning exercise.
Having just wrote those casually condemnatory comments I thought I should check a few facts…via Wiki of course:
Prioy to entering politics she was “a successful but controversial businesswoman in the gas industry, becoming by some estimates one of the richest people in the country.”
“From 1995 to 1997,[5] Tymoshenko was the president of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned middleman company that became the main importer of Russian natural gas to Ukraine in 1996. During that time she was nicknamed “gas princess” in light of accusations that she had been reselling enormous quantities of stolen gas and avoiding taxation of those deals. She was also accused of “having given Pavlo Lazarenko kickbacks in exchange for her company’s stranglehold on the country’s gas supplies”.[30] …
Tymoshenko is said to have acquired a significant fortune between 1990 and 1998. It was during this period of privatization (which historians have described as a period full of corruption and mismanagement) that she became one of the wealthiest oligarchs in Ukraine.[30]”
Then some better behaviour:
“From late December 1999 to January 2001, Tymoshenko was the Deputy Prime Minister for the fuel and energy sector in the cabinet of Viktor Yushchenko.[1] She officially left parliament on 2 March 2000.[36] As energy Deputy Prime Minister, she virtually ended many corrupt arrangements in the energy sector. Under her stewardship, Ukraine’s revenue collections from the electricity industry grew by several thousand percent. She scrapped the practice of barter in the electricity market, requiring industrial customers to pay for their electricity in cash.[41] She also terminated exemptions for many organizations[42] which excluded them from having their power disconnected. Her reforms meant that the government had sufficient funds to pay civil servants and increase salaries.[43] Tymoshenko was fired by President Leonid Kuchma in January 2001 after developing a conflict with oligarchs in the industry.”